Long Beach peahen reunited with chicks after nearly a month apart

LONG BEACH >> An animal control call turned Facebook-fueled controversy came to a happy ending earlier this week when a peahen and her chicks were reunited after being separated last month.

Long Beach resident Cleo DeMarco, who organized a neighborhood effort to reunite the family, said she is thankful the nearly month-long saga has come to an end.

“Overall, it’s just been really amazing to see everyone coming together for the birds,” she said.

Long Beach Animal Care Services officers in mid-June were called to an apartment complex near East Fourth Street and Park Avenue to capture the peahen and four chicks. Officers were able to capture the chicks, but the hen escaped.

News of the avian family’s separation spread through a Facebook thread posted to the “Long Beach, Calif.” page, which received almost 200 comments.

Many of the comments expressed anger at Animal Care Services, arguing that separating the chicks from their mother was cruel. Others said they wondered why the city would expend resources to capture birds when calls about coyotes got no response.

Others criticized the woman who placed the call to animal care, Denise Carlton.

Carlton said she and her neighbors had the birds’ best interests in mind and that the animal care officer stopped trying to capture the hen for fear of injuring it.

Ted Stevens, Long Beach Animal Care Services manager, said the area around Colorado Lagoon, near where the birds were found, is not a safe habitat for peafowl.

Traffic poses a significant risk, and the birds are adapted to live in a forested environment.

The peahen eluded capture for weeks but eventually settled near a neighbor’s backyard, DeMarco said.

At first she tried to lure the bird into an enclosed area with the chicks but changed tactics when that failed.

“We were luring (the hen) with mealworms for a couple of weeks,” DeMarco said.

Advertisement

Then she got a call from the neighbor late Monday morning. The hen took the bait and was inside a cage they had rigged with a trap door.

“It was kind of like a cartoon,” DeMarco said. “We had the door propped up with a stick.”

Stevens picked up the hen later that day and took it to an aviary where it was reunited with the chicks, she said.

“We have so many issues with animals in this city, with stray pets, ... I think we’re all just relieved this was a happy ending,” DeMarco said.